AllFreeNovel
Share Us
'Oh…' It came out in a sighing rush as she met the promise of his eyes.
'Russian bears have bad tempers, but they make up for it in other ways.'
'W…what ways?'
The sullen, sensuous beauty of his features blurred as he bent towards her to demonstrate. His mouth wasn't gentle, but she didn't want it to be. There was too much dammed-up passion intermingled with the vestiges of their anger to waste time in the tender preliminaries. For a long time they kissed, falling back to entwine on the bed, David shrugging out of his dinner-jacket and white shirt, removing Clare's robe so that he could murmur foreign phrases of delight at the loveliness beneath.
'Speak English,' Clare whispered, holding out her arms to welcome him back.
David held back, sitting beside her outstretched body, enjoying the agony of anticipation which had racked him for days and which was now whipped to its peak. 'If you understood what I was saying, what I want to do to you and how,, you'd blush for a week.'
Clare's eyes were a smoky grey. 'Tell me…show me…' she invited huskily, more uninhibited than she had ever been in her life. Her body throbbed languorously under his hungry, desiring gaze. 'Please, I don't want to wait any more…'
The thick muscles of his chest and flat belly clenched. David leant over and turned the love-worn brown teddy bear's face to the wall.
'There are some things ordinary bears shouldn't know. It might make them discontented with their lot.' The low, sensuous words shivered over Clare's skin, and she gave a tiny cry as she felt the warm hand slide caressingly up her thighs.
'Beautiful legs…' He made her lie there while he admired them, worshipped them with hands and eyes and mouth, from the sensitive inner curve of her ankle to the palest, silky-soft skin at the top of her thighs where the loose ruffle of yellow lace could be coaxed to reveal its secrets.
He seemed to sense the moment when she couldn't bear any more, and reluctantly returned to her mouth, her breasts gleaming against the parted silk of the thin bodice, cupped in the darkness of his exquisitely knowledgeable hands. Clare felt the heaviness of him, knew the taste of his desire, and wanted him more than she had wanted anything in her life, with an urgency that was as exhilarating as it was frightening. He seemed to know her body better than she did herself, and she ached to gain that intimate knowledge of him. She revelled in the freedom to tease him as she eluded his caresses so that she could take off the rest of his clothes. After she had knelt on the bed to remove his shoes and socks, she laughingly restrained him from kissing and stroking her aching breasts while she attacked his trousers.
'You must let me take some of the initiative, David,' she told him, deliciously arousing in her innocent haste, 'otherwise I shall feel like a puppet, with you pulling the strings.'
'I rather had in mind a glove puppet,' said David wickedly, taking advantage of her vulnerable position to run his hand up the rounded curve of her buttock under the leg of her now considerably dishevelled teddy.
'I mean it, David,' said Clare, slapping his hand away, half-serious in her attempt to have him realise that she wanted to share the act of love, not just be a passive participant. Her tongue curled out of the corner of her mouth and she concentrated on fathoming the mystery of his fashionable cummerbund. Suddenly, with her smooth, silky skin and freckles and slightly awed eagerness, she seemed very young. Just so did Tim use his tongue to help concentrate when he was struggling with a new practice piece. David stilled beneath her slender hands. He had set out to seduce her and he had succeeded beyond his wildest dreams. She was like a pale, searing flame in his arms. He had wanted her like this… had imagined how it would be. But imagination was different fr
om reality. In reality one had responsibilities, to oneself and to others.
'Clare.' It caused a physical pain to draw her hands away from his hardness. He kissed the tender tips, holding her when she would have pulled away still smiling, teasing…
'Clare, we can't do this,' he sighed.
She thought he was joking, teasing her, heightening the pleasure in what was to come. He closed his eyes to shut out her sinfully sweet pout. He must be mad to do this… to give her the rope to hang him. He had never considered himself the self-sacrificing type before!
'Clare, have you made up your mind about Tim and the school?' He opened his eyes. He was mad! 'Clare, don't look at me like that. I want you, heaven knows there's not much chance of me hiding that. But I don't want you to claim afterwards that I was trying to influence you unfairly—'
Clare's heart began to beat again, the stinging humiliation fading as quickly as it had come. 'I wouldn't think that! I'm quite capable of separating sex from… from the rest of our lives.'
It was not a very diplomatic lie, face-saving though it might have been. David put her quite firmly from him and began to dress. 'But I'm not. It isn't going to be that easy, for either of us. I demand more than just neatly compartmentalised sex, so you'd better be very sure before you blithely throw yourself into my arms. And I want this other business with Tim sorted out so that we can concentrate purely on us.'
Clare was in no mood for his exquisite reason. Now she was aching with unrequited desire as well as love! 'It must be very convenient to be able to switch on and off the way you obviously do—'
He scooped her up against his broad chest, and before she had time to get excited again pulled back the bedclothes and dumped her on the sheet, tucking her in with ruthless efficiency. 'Clare, darling, right now I'm very tempted to lock those gorgeous legs around me and throw away the key. Here!' He thrust Uncle Julian in beside her, and gave the teddy bear a sullen, jealous glare that eased the hard lump in Clare's hollow breast. He actually resented a stuffed toy—the Martyred Maestro!
'Enjoy her while you can, furball; your days are seriously numbered!' he growled. The look he turned on Clare melted her to the pillow. 'Decide soon, Clare. My heart isn't strong enough to stand this kind of strain.'
Neither is mine, thought Clare sadly as she tried to will herself to sleep. She had already decided about Tim… it was her own plans that were up in the air. She couldn't stay at Moonlight while Tim lived in Auckland, and she didn't want to move in with Virginia, who would probably expect it. Still, she had heard one or two things today that might help. Tomorrow…tomorrow she would tell David that Tim would be joining his select band of pupils. Tomorrow morning. That would give she and David the rest of the day to concentrate on 'us'.
Like many a best-laid plan, it was not to be. For Clare was woken the next morning by a pale-faced, distracted David. Tamara had walked into the bush last night from the lodge and not walked out again. Miles had called out Search and Rescue, and the helicopter was fuelled-up and ready to go…
CHAPTER NINE
It wasn't raining any more, but the air was still thick with moisture and the ground near the jetty had been churned into a muddy mess by a clutch of four-wheel-drive vehicles and the heavy, tramping boots of the searchers.
An air of uneasy relief hung over the site as the team of Search and Rescue workers began to withdraw. They had gone out at first light, but hadn't found Tamara until late afternoon. She had been warmly dressed, but she hadn't banked on the rain which had accompanied the plunge in night temperature, or the rustling of nocturnal animals that had had her stumbling around in the impenetrable dark instead of being comfortably curled up in her carefully planned 'hidey-hole', waiting to be rescued.
For Tamara had deliberately 'lost' herself, and in doing so had underestimated the bush. She had thought that she could walk out as easily as she had walked in, once she had sufficiently frightened everyone. She was showing the first signs of exposure by the time she was found, and in her distraught state had sobbed out the truth, earning herself an angry lecture from the police officer in charge of the search. Tamara had taken it on the chin, stiff and proud, although she had apologised in a choked voice that was sincere in its shame and fright.
